~ Communications strategy, technology and media

Category Archives: Advertising to Women

Its called Beautiful Me, and despite the shallow name, this actually sounds quite interesting. The iOS app analyses up to 500 Facebook photos of you and gives you tips and info on skin care, your aging process and make-up color choices. It was developed by ModiFace (another slightly disturbing name) and sounds really useful and cool!

YEEEES its here! The super connected bra that only opens if the woman is in love!

It is no secret. I love utility. When I saw this I thought. Wow, that has trouble written all over it. A bra that only opens when a woman feels true love. Would not have worked in the late 60’s and may not be ideal now either. But what a fun product and a really cool way of integrating very complex sensory data into a bra, making it a piece of sophisticated wearable tech! Go get one ladies! If for nothing else, to test whether your current relationship has legs.

For those of us interested in fem care… Yes, believe it or not, I am one of those people:) This is a pretty cool video from Hello Flo – one of the new Birch Box like companies, with special focus on Menstruation packages – The Period Store is another one!

Love this video. It is all about opennes, being a little raunchy and of course using the word Vag(ina) over and over again. They target young girls while appealing to women of all ages. Love it.

A new very interesting film by Dove and Ogilvy about real beauty. This time they dive into womens self perception and how they are usually their own harshest critic. They are more beautiful than they think. And it is not always about the skin deep beauty. It is about a smile and being nice. Again a great insightful core for their execution. And a great piece of content, if a little over-emotional.

Back from my holiday and first thing I stumble upon on adverblog is this recommandation of Coca Cola Zero’s advergame Coke Zero Rooftop Racer. As I eagerly try it out I soon find out that trying to balance a coke zero on the roof of a nascar racer isn’t my idea of fun. But it makes me linger a moment, doing some much needed, back-from-tour-de-france-watching-mode thinking on the branding of diet coke and coca cola zero.

First of all, let’s have a look at the two beverages themselves – how similar are they in the way they are produced and the way they taste? Diet Coke is sweetened with the artificial sweetener Aspartame, while Coke Zero is sweetened with a mix of Apartame and Acesulfame Potassium. So both are free of sugar and calories. What else is new? Well, to me and many others they taste similar, but the official statement is that Diet Coke is based on a genuinly new syrup formula, while the Zero is based on the original Coca Cola formula. But no big difference here, either.

So how come women tend to prefer diet coke, while men prefer coca cola zero? It’s quite simple, just open your eyes and look at the different branding of two similar, sugarfree coca cola products.

When you compare the commercials and ads, what immediately gets obvious is the hughe emphasis on gender and the idea of a specific masculine and a specific feminine way of living and thinking. The masculine Zero was launched with the “A Taste Of Life As It Should Be” tv ad-series.They all center on a young male main character, who experiences meeting his ex-girlfriend with her new boyfriend or breaking up with a girlfriend “as it should be”, involving half-naked dancing, horny women, big motorbikes, choppers and lots of explosions.

Diet Coke, on the other hand, target women with their Light It Up tv ad. Our female main character is out rollerskating, drinking diet coke on a sunny day to a groovy, happy soundtrack. She’s having lots of fun with her primarily female friends, focusing on the social aspect of living.

The two products’ homepages only underline this masculine vs. feminine branding. While Zero’s homepage is held in dark colors and features the above-mentioned racer game and news and clips on Nascar, Diet Coke’s homepage is held in silver and white colors, while clearly showing Diet Cokes partnership with The Heart Truth, a natinoal U.S. awareness campaign for women on heart disease.

Well, obviously none of the above is rocket science. Not at all. But I still find it noteworty that we consumers buy these classical masculine vs. feminine values through preferring either the masculine Zero of the feminine Diet Coke. Once again, branding and the theory of symbolic surplus value show their effective teeth.

I’m looking forward to see if we consumers buy the same concept, if danish dairy product giant Arla launch both a masculine and a feminine low-fat milk. Yummie!

The few good men out there, frequently listening to the Digital Vinyl gospel has probably noticed the serials of ‘Dove-vertising’ admiration. The story continues here, but as in any good drama, the storyline now takes a dramatic turn. And I must admit a somewhat predicitable add-on to the Dove sequal…

Dove’s viral video attack on beauty advertising has produced a strong criticism against Unilever from e.g. activists and bloggers who see it as hypocritical coming from the same company that markets Axe. Why can Unilever, also being the marketeer of Axe, question and attack the ad values of beauty industry ? When you unleash an viral film like “Onslaught” on YouTube, you’re looking for trouble. This viral film illustrates the dilemma in a very direct and understandable way.

It is definitly a dilemma, and a relevant perspective in a corporate brand point of view. Even if only one in 100 people may know that Unilever owns both brands, the web 2.0 is empowering the word of mouth. The crowd is anticipating the next steps of Dove/Unilever.

If your’e interested in reading more aspects of the story, Adage did a great piece on this.

I must admit. I have a huge respect for what DOVE has achieved during the last couple of years. Now Dove has launched The Reality Diaries online. A true engaging idea!
In a more teen-focused way than the usual, thought provoking pieces Dove does, the diaries log the lives of four 15-17 year old girls and their thoughts on boys, beauty and body image.

The site hosts videos showing interviews with the four girls, answering questions such as ‘so, you don’t have a great relationship with your mother’ and so on.

The site has (not surprisingly) already been met with some sceptism. According to Contagious Magazine, the all-female creative and strategic think tank 3iYing, commented: ‘When we stripped away the amazing music and cool video effects of these films and got down to the real message, we realized there’s a contradiction here. Dove claims it’s helping girls to build self-esteem. Instead, it often feels like they’re encouraging people to pass judgment on girls. The anti-beauty-industry tack doesn’t fly for a generation that uses Photoshop to clean up their Facebook images and is used to seeing paparazzi images of celebrities on bad days.’

Well, judge for yourself. No matter what I applaud the ongoing dynamics these guys add to the concept, and I think that this case illustrates that it is important that you move on with caution – especially if you are a beauty gigant trying going upstream.

Dove has done it again. Well, for starters, it’s not just a commercial. It is a great film.A follow up to the Cannes award winning piece ‘Evolution’ where we see a ordinary woman transforming into a photoshop’ish beauty. For years now, Dove has pledged for the citizens in the world, that we need to change the way we see ourselves in terms of beauty. The succes of the Campaign for real beauty part one has been outstanding, and now they’re ready with a follow-up campaign emphazising once again the cultural relevance of the brand and it’s point of view. A brand who’s most recent viral video chronicles the damaging effect of unrealistic media images on young girls. In one brief minute, it indicts the culture’s obsession with Barbie-doll exteriors, raises the consciousness of girls and women and exposes the inner ugliness of the so-called beauty industry. And you can’t take your eyes off of it for a second. Love it.If any of you out there would like to share some observations or thoughts on the Dove phenomenon please feel free to comment!